Beauty and the Skaven
by Slayzer
Summary: It's just like Beauty and the Beast but with Queek Headtaker as the beast. More blood and gore as well. Also far more insanity and decapitations then then fairytale with skulls that may or may not be talking. Really it has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast.


Warhammer is owned by Games Workshop and I make no money of the use of their intellectual property.

The idea for this story has been in my mind after I finished reading HEADTAKER by David Guymer. It takes place after that novel and gives away somethings from it.

Please enjoy this odd little story of madness and blood in the world of Warhammer Fantasy.

Beauty and the Skaven

-By Slayzer

-A clear summers day in the World's Edge Mountains-

"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" the Chaos knight screamed into his dieing bloody breath like so many countless number of Khorne's worshipers had before him. A spiked maul had plugged through his black armor and a blade lopped off the his head a split seconded later.

The head bounced for a moment before laying at the black furred feet of his killer. A rat walking like a man in armor that was already deeply crimson even before the blood spray coated again. Affixed to the back of the red armor was a spine of spikes each bearing a fleshless skull. The ratman kicked out with his foot paw knocking corpse of the warrior free from the maul he held in one paw.

Almost lovingly the rat monster picked up the freshly severed head and chuckled darkly. "Did you ever think-dream that your own skull would be cut-taken?" The skaven asked as he raised the dead man's head up high so it's voiceless answer could carry over the carnage of the battlefield.

"The only one take-keeping skulls today is Queek!" Queek then threw the head over the side of the mountain path he stood on.

The path was slick with blood and death as Queek and his elite paw picked Stormvermin held the path against a Chaos army. Queek's tail lashed about in smug satisfaction. Of course it helped that his own Skaven army was raining death on the Chaos worshipers.

Yet even over the sounds of battle the mountains still echoed with the roar of Khorne worshipers. "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"

Queek shook his head, that consent changing of blood-mad man-things was getting annoying. It was also a very stupid chant because Queek knows every well that skulls don't need thrones. He cast a mad eye up over his shoulder to his trophy rack. Skulls only need a spike to hang from not fancy chairs to sit in.

This Chaos fool-meat thought to slip through the world's edge mountains but Queek's trophies told him of demon-thing blood worshipers. He snarled when he thought of the many skulls of this friends back in his lair warning him that skull taking demon-thing coming to take them away from Queek.

Well the Chaos fools had paid dearly for thinking that merely being outnumber would stop the mighty Queek. Not after the new skull of old-thing had taught Queek of that odd human word thing?

_Logistics_ Sleek Sharpwit said for his new home on Queek's shoulder spike.

At one time Queek looked at his armies the way he had looked at his sword as just a solid thing but it was more like his armor. Every part and piece making something greater then itself and become less useful as more parts failed. However the most obvious way that Queek's army of screaming Skaven was like his armor was that they both only existed to be useful to him.

Queek's skaven army had poured out of every hidden mountain cave and rat tunnel they knew. The ratmen held the high ground and passes while the chaos army was trapped in a narrow ravine.

From up high hundreds of Skaven with nothing more then straps of leather to use as slings sent fist sized granite rocks raining down. The hailstorm of rocks bruised flash, cracked bone and split skulls.

In another pass a team of massive rat ogres dropped boulders in a frightening and deadly simulation of an avalanche, chaos warriors getting crushed and pulped with every bouncing rock.

Green light scared the clear morning sky as a warpfire throwers set a whole path a blaze. The green sorceress fire leaping down ranks of northern marauders as if they were dry kindling.

The Skaven weren't having it all there own way. Chaos raiders on horse back charged through a Clan Rat line killing as the went. It took sometime and the threat-orders of their chieftains before they cut the beast's legs out from under their riders. Still the lack of their mounts did not make the raider's blades any less deadly.

No matter.

If the Chaos man-things wanted to get out of this pass alive there was only one way out and they would have to fight through Queek and his best troops. The path that was now littered with dead bodies.

Kill box is as what the skull of the dwarf-thing Krug had called it.

Queek did not like that word, kill box. It sounded like some Clan Skryre tinker-rat toy but looking at it now it was amusing. Like a watching a bunch of rats cornering a dog. And while Queek loved few things more then smash-killing his enemies and watching the life roll out of their eyes he was a Skaven. And few things made a Skaven preen like thrusting knife blade into an unaware enemy's back.

Queek's whiskers twitched in murderous joy as this battle was over and won.

He knew it.

The skulls on his trophy rack knew it.

Even the lowest half-wit Skaven spear rat knew it.

Kicking up a cloud of dust as they charged Queek's position on foot the chaos champion and his entourage knew it too.

Queek spread his arm as if to greet the chaos spawned madmen like old friends. Behind him his Stormvermin rushed forward with halberds and swords flashing. The world became a haze of red armored ratmen fighting black armored madmen as Queek and the Chaos warlord stood unmoving as if in the eye of a hurricane of death.

The Chaos champion was a huge not quite man-thing in black rune etched armor with a stench like old death. It offend Queek's nose much more then it did his eyes. The chaos thing smelled like a man-thing but also beast-things, dead-things and other worldly-things with a breath that reeked like sulfur. Queek's keen skaven nose didn't know what to make of it. The champion clashed his ax against the massive shield he held in his other hand.

"Blood for...!"

Queek held out a paw as if to shush a particularly stupid runt. "Queek is tired of hearing same oath to blood-mad demon-thing that makes play it's a god."

The champion seemed stunned by this causal dismissal of not only himself but his god. No self-respecting servant of Khorne would admit it but they and their god were a prideful bunch. If a warrior of Khorne wasn't killing they were boasting or singing about the people that they had killed before. It was a rough kind of prideful honor cut deep into their core but it was as much a part of them as their blades.

Queek took the Chaos champions stupefied silence as a sign he was paying attention. "Your soul will be gnawed by the Horned Rat and your skull..." Queek brandished his warp blade and Dwarf Gouger. "...belongs to Queek!"

Queek lashed out with more speed and power then the Chaos champion thought possible for a skaven. After that first exchange the champion of Chaos would not underestimation Queek again.

Demon foraged black steel clashed with Skaven warpstone metal as strikes and counterstrikes blazed away between the two. It seemed that every blow from Dwarf Gouger that rang against the champion's shield left a deep dent while his ax was batted away by Queek's blade.

The Chaos champion didn't do something soon his shield would brake apart and leave him defenseless. He lashed out with his shield bashing Queek's snout and followed through with a chop of his ax.

It almost worked.

The demon ax was knocked down in the last moment by Queek's windmilling blade with the ax's edge biting into the dirt. A weight shifted on the warrior's arm as the Headtaker put one footpaw on the flat of his earthbound ax. Queek ran up the Chaos champion's arm like a rat run. Then bringing all his power and wight to bear Queek ripped a bloody canal from the man's right shoulder to left thigh with Dwarf Gouger. The man fell backwards with Queek riding on his chest. The skaven warlord smirked as he stood atop the Chaos champion like a lumberjack on a felled tree.

Queek pressed his warpstone blade to the man's neck. "Tell demon-thing that Queek will be take-keeping your skull."

Then something odd began to happened. The man's blood started to flow back into his black armor as the ruins blazed brighter. His body seemed to expand like the gas bloated stomach of a corpse.

The champions dieing words wheezed out of his mouth like air pushed by great bellows. "Death in battle is the only reward Khorne gives but I am still a spiteful weak little man. So I made sure that when I die I would not die alone." Then his eyes then popped like overripe fruit as his blood literary boiled.

Through the random madness of Queek's mind the scent and face of a dead tinker-rat Fizqwik came from his memories.

A loud thud like the misfire of cannon with a plugged barrel the chaos champion's body exploded spectacularly. The shrapnel from his armor scythed through the hapless skaven and chaos knights who were to close. Queek was sent flying though the air as the force of the blast carried him off the mountain path.

Ska Bloodtail had just pulled his snout up after the blast to see Queek smash against the hard rocks of the mountain's downward slope. A small fortune of warp stone was being shed from the fractured ruins of Queeks armor as he bounced along. Ska then lost slight of the skaven warlord when his body feel into a face flowing mountain river and got swept away.

Queek Headtaker was gone.

The thought filled Ska with blood lust and he took his frustrations out on the Chaos warriors around him. For so long Ska Bloodtail had been a slave to Queek's childlike whims and fits of madness but no more. The thought should have made his tail rigged with joy but it was as if Queek's madness had infected Ska over time.

With the Headtaker dead Ska's world had gone sane and he couldn't cope.

If the Chaos worshipers thought the lose of their warlord would give the skaven pause then they didn't know skaven. The ratman could taste the sweet flesh-meat of victory and not even the death of Queek dampened their moral. After all the only pelt any skaven cared about was his own so it didn't matter at all if death claimed another ratman, even his warlord, as long as he was still alive.

Now with Queek dead the power had shifted. The dwarf-things and green-things that fought with the skaven for the City of Pillars would use this to there advantage. As would any number of other skaven warrens and clans.

Ska could already see spies sneaking away from the fight to squeak the news of Queek's death. There would be a civil war waiting for them back at the City of Pillars and numerous enemies chomping at their tails. The world's edge mountains were going to run with red with blood.

'Queek would have loved to be here for it.' Ska mused as he cleaved the head off a Chaos knight.

-A Valley in the Border Princes-

This was Border Princes, the ruff frontier between the Empire and wildness in the shadows of the World's Edge Mountains. It was an odd place to find a lone human girl, odder still that she was dressed as a maid. She looked as if she was only in her seventeenth year and yet their was a weariness in her eyes that would see on an old soldier, the eyes of someone used to horror and pain.

The girl's name was Bella and she was doubly damned. First she was poor and while that was hardly uncommon it complicated her second problem, for Bella was beautiful. With her long brown hair, fine face and comely figure Bella was a prize and like so many other prizes was an object to be sold.

When she was but thirteen years old Bella's own father sold her to work in a noble house as a serving girl. The head of that house was a man named Gustav and that first night he showed Bella what kind of 'service' he expected from her.

Gustav's other major vice besides debauchery was hunting. He'd been all over the old word and beyond just to hunt rare and dangerous animals.

That's what Bella was doing in Troll Country.

Gustav had gather his toadies and men at arms for a hunting trip into wild country. Bella was dragged along for the lord's late night entertainment. It wasn't so bad if the day's hunt went well. After a good hunt Gustav would be so drunk that he'd fall asleep the moment he'd lay down. If the hunt went poorly then he would take his frustrations out on Bella in the worst ways.

Last night Bella had enough of it and the fear of Gustav had overwhelmed her fear of the unknown and she ran away from camp. Bella only had her maid's clothing and some food she manged to steal but she thought that would be enough. Bella had hope that by not stealing anything of real value that Gustav wouldn't find her worth the bother of chasing down.

The all to familiar sound of Gustav's hunting horn and the bark of his dogs told her that wasn't so. For all her effort all Bella had done was to make herself into today's sport. With the howling of the dogs getting closer Bella knew she had to lose them somehow. She saw a river a head and if she could cross it the dogs would lose her sent.

Bella was just about to wade into the water when something on the river bank caught her eye. Several skulls lay scarred close by and none of them were human. What she saw next almost made her scream.

At first she thought it was a drowned bear with all the wet black fur but the shape was wrong. It was more rat then bear with a rodent's long face and wormy tail. Getting a better look at it Bella saw that it had wore the tatted remains of some kind of armor like a human would. In fact it was frighteningly human like for a rat.

Childhood nightmares of the mythic 'Underfolk' came to Bella's mind. The cruel rat people who live underground and snatched misbehaving children.

Perhaps it could feel Bella's eyes on it or maybe it was just fate but it that moment the rat monster opened his eyes. Those blood red eyes held nothing but hunger, madness and most terrifying of all, intelligences.

"Where is Queek?" The ratman asked as he slowly rose to his weary foot paws.

Bella screamed and ran away from it.

She was only a few dozen paces away from the river when a gloved but hand reached out from a blind spot to grabbed her. Bella found herself in the less the welcoming arms of Leopold a young noble and one of Gustav's toddies.

"Looks like our bitch hunt is coming to an end already." Leopold said as he smacked Bella across the face to teach her a lesson.

"There was a rat!" Bella said still so frightened that she did not even feel the blow.

"A rat, you don't say? I never would have imagined they be all the way out here." The man's sarcasm was so thick it could have stopped a knife.

"It was a huge rat!" Bella insisted but panic kept her from being clear.

Leopold had enough of her hysterics and threw Bella to the ground. "I got tired of Gustav parading you around camp every day while telling us to keep our hand off his property. Then after you ran away he said that whoever catches you would get to enjoy you."

The man stated to undo his belt but stopped suddenly as the reek of wet fur assaulted his nose. The was all the warning Leopold got before Queek ripped his throat out with one bare claw. Leopold collapsed gasping for air horribly as his blood filled his lungs

"Where did Queek's army go? Did the spleenless coward-meat scurry-flee when Queek wasn't looking?" Queek asked this questions to seeming no one and yet still acted like he expected an answer.

Then to Queek's horror he looked behind him and saw that his trophies were gone.

"Where are Queek's trophies!?" This time Queek directed his question and rage at Bella.

"You mean those skulls? Their still by the river where you woke up."

Queek sighed seemingly relieved by the news that at lest his precious trophies were not lost to him. Then looking down at the dieing man-thing he remembered something else.

Queek was hungry.

Queek ripped open the noble's fine shirt and barred his fangs into the man's gut.

Bella watched, transfixed by the sight of a hungry skaven eating a man. Blood, skin and ropey intestines were gobbled up by Queek's large fangs. Then Bella saw Leopold's eyes, he was still alive and watching her. Tears of pain and fear streamed down his face as he slightly begged her to save him.

Bella smiled a brilliant pure smile of joy like she had not done in years and waved at Leopold. She was letting him know that she saw his plea but she didn't care. Bella wanted to watch this monster, this beastly engine of death that called itself Queek, eat him alive.

Queek brought his gore smeared snout up from his meal to see that the breeder hadn't run away. She was even bearing her teeth in aggression to the man-thing he was eating. Had she bared some grudge with the man-thing? It didn't matter, as the ways of man-things were to crazy for even one with Queek's brilliance to figure out. The breeder's choice to stay just saved Queek the trouble of chasing her down.

The breeder had been helpful in telling Queek about were his skulls were. Queek was not so mad as to realizes he was very far from his people. He would have use her until he got back to the Underempire. And if she didn't prove useful there was always the old skaven proverb about slaves.

Eat one now and save one for later.

-end-

Is it wrong to think that Skaven are kind of sexy? If your into fur then the skaven are kind of hot. Like werewolves but without the pretentious oh so tragic human side.

That being said I don't think this will be a romantic relationship between a human girl and skaven as much as it will be mutually beneficial insanity. Queek needs her to help him get back to the underempire and Bella would like him to kill her tormentors.

If you were looking forward to some girl and skaven bestiality then I could point you to some Slaanesh cults that are always looking for new members.


End file.
